Anthropic disclosed that three of its AI models hacked unsuspecting companies during cybersecurity tests after a configuration error gave them live internet access, leading the systems to mistake real-world targets for part of their benchmarking exercises. TechCrunch has more here.

A federal judge said the Trump administration still has not produced evidence justifying its designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, questioning claims that the company could alter deployed models and warning the ban may be retaliation for criticizing Pentagon policy. TechCrunch has more here.

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Situational Awareness, a hedge fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has sold the majority of its public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel following steep losses over the past month, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Thursday. It’s a big comedown for the rising star who has been described as both “scarily smart,” and “brash.”

German-born Aschenbrenner, who is 25, had no prior trading experience before launching the fund in 2024. He gained prominence for his investment thesis after publishing essays arguing that scaling AI would require a major build-up in semiconductors, compute, memory, and energy infrastructure.

He joined OpenAI’s “superalignment” team in 2023, two years after graduating as valedictorian from Columbia at 19 (he enrolled at age 15). But he was dismissed from the company a year later over what it described as an improper disclosure of internal information. At the time, that team was led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and AI researcher Jan Leike. Soon after, Sutskever left to start his own company, Leike joined rival Anthropic, and Aschenbrenner launched his fund.

Things couldn’t have been going better for Situational Awareness until very recently. The fund returned 439% for the year through June, Financial Times reported. Assets under management reportedly grew to as much as $45 billion during their peak before the fund’s positions began dropping sharply amid a broader decline in AI infrastructure investments, CNBC reported.

Even after losses mounted, Aschenbrenner didn’t flinch. In a July 24 letter to investors seen by FT, he called the selloff one of the best buying opportunities since early last year and invited clients to commit fresh capital starting August 1. According to Bloomberg, the appeal didn’t garner the commitments he’d hoped would materialize.

Antora Energy, an eight-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that builds thermal batteries that store electricity as heat to supply industrial facilities, data centers, and grids with long-duration power, raised a $550 million Series C round co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse, with Ribbit Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Activate Capital, John Doerr, Westly Group, StepStone Group, and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures as well as previous investors Decarbonization Partners, Impact Science Ventures, Trust Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital also piling on. More here.

Function, a four-year-old Austin startup that provides consumers with recurring lab testing, optional medical imaging, and personalized health insights to monitor risks before symptoms develop, raised a $450 million round led by General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. More here.

Inforcer, a four-year-old London startup that helps managed service providers manage Microsoft 365 accounts and security controls for small-business clients, raised a $50 million Series C round led by Insight Partners, with Dawn Capital and Meritech Capital also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $110 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Onyx Security, a two-year-old Tel Aviv and New York startup that helps enterprises control AI agents by managing permissions, monitoring activity, and blocking malicious or unintended behavior, raised a $113 million Series B at an estimated $640 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Cyberstarts, TCV, Conviction, FirstMark, Vintage, QuantumLight, and G Squared also anteing up. CTech has more here.

Simile, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that creates simulated users that help companies test marketing ideas and product concepts before running research with real customers, raised a $200 million Series B round at a $2 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Greenoaks, with Definition as well as previous investors Index Ventures, Hanabi, Bain Capital Ventures, A*, Factory, and CVS Health Ventures also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.

Xsight Labs, a nine-year-old Tel Aviv startup that makes programmable data processing units and Ethernet switches for AI and cloud data center networks, raised a $300+ million round at a $2.8 billion post-money valuation. Fidelity was the deal lead, with Aliya Capital Partners, Atreides Management, Artisan Partners, Battery Ventures, Diagonal Capital, Intel Capital, Key1 Capital, Maverick Capital, Sienna, T. Rowe Price, Union Group, and Valor Equity Partners also participating. More here.

Bloom Security, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps security teams map applications, AI agents, plugins, and code on employee devices and block risky access, raised a $20 million seed round co-led by Glilot Capital Partners and Ten Eleven Ventures, with Okta Ventures and Runtime Ventures also chiming in. CTech has more here.

DataBahn, a two-year-old startup based in Plano, TX, that helps enterprises reduce, enrich, govern, and route telemetry data from hundreds of sources to security, analytics, and AI systems, raised a $40 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with previous investors Forgepoint Capital, GTM Capital, and S3 Ventures also opting in. The company has raised a total of $59 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Dili, a three-year-old New York startup that reviews payroll, wage, and other compliance data to catch audit errors across federal energy, infrastructure, construction, and manufacturing projects, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures, with Garry Tan, Allianz, Darren Bechtel, and Rebel Fund also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $21.7 million. More here.

Discern Security, a three-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that helps companies find and fix gaps in their existing security controls, raised a $13 million Series A round led by Forgepoint Capital, with First Rays Ventures, Growth Enjin Partners, and Vela Ventures also participating. SecurityWeek has more here.

Epitel, a Salt Lake City startup that provides wireless EEG monitoring that analyzes brain activity at home and in clinics to flag potential seizures and speed diagnosis, raised a $26 million Series B round co-led by Catalyst Health Ventures and Genoa Ventures. More here.

Foundational Industries, a New York startup founded this year that builds factories designed to be run by AI software, starting with custom data center hardware, raised a $25 million seed round co-led by BoxGroup and Zigg Ventures, with Abstract Ventures, Adverb Ventures, Buckley Ventures, and Offline Ventures also participating. Fortune has more here.

Intropy, a two-year-old London startup that automates inventory, pricing, and other operating decisions for spare parts distributors, manufacturers, and recyclers inside their existing ERP systems, raised an $11 million seed round led by Felix Capital, with Quiet Capital as well as previous investor General Catalyst also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

UnitAI, a two-year-old Boston startup that automates item-level inventory management, ecommerce fulfillment, and returns for retailers and third-party logistics providers across existing warehouse networks, raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Prologis Ventures, Dynamo Ventures, and Ground Up Ventures, with eGateway Capital, Recursive Ventures, Think + Ventures, ZEP Fund, and Crosscourt also digging in. Robotics Tomorrow has more here.

Biota, a two-year-old startup based in Longmont, CO, that develops rapid tests for PFAS contamination that help utilities and remediation teams identify pollution and evaluate treatment systems, raised a $3 million seed round led by Burnt Island Ventures, with DeepWork Capital, Beyond Utility Water Ventures, and Deming Center Venture Fund as well as previous investor Antler also buying in. More here.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an eight-year-old startup based in Devens, MA, that builds fusion demonstration reactors and commercial power plants designed to supply electricity to the grid, raised a $1 billion round from an unnamed group of investors. The company has raised a total of $4 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

CopySight, a two-year-old Los Angeles startup that helps studios, gaming companies, platforms, and enterprises check AI-generated images and videos for copyright and likeness risks before release, raised a $3 million seed round led by Mucker Capital, with Taisu VC, Flint Capital, and Yellow Rocks also anteing up. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Dimension, a two-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, CA, that automates TikTok Shop store management, affiliate programs, advertising, customer support, and creator relationships for brands and agencies, raised a $1.7 million seed round. Investors included Science Inc., UpscaleX, OpenSky, Long Run Capital, and 1864 Fund. More here.

Fast Metals, a one-year-old startup based in Stamford, CT, that extracts saleable minerals from aluminum-refining red mud using chemicals from refinery waste, raised a $4.3 million pre-seed round led by New Climate Ventures, with Azolla Ventures, Astor Swiss, and Founders Factory also investing. TechCrunch has more here.

K2 Space, a four-year-old startup based in Torrance, CA, that manufactures large, high-power satellites that carry heavier payloads for commercial communications networks and national security missions, raised a $500 million Series D round at a $6.8 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ, with CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark Capital, Sands Capital, ARK Invest, and T. Rowe Price Associates also taking stakes. The company has raised a total of $1+ billion. GeekWire has more here.

P-1 AI, a two-year-old startup based in San Mateo, CA, that builds an AI engineer that helps industrial teams complete mechanical, electrical, and systems design workflows, raised a $50 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates. More here.

Quercus Biosolutions, a two-year-old St. Louis startup that designs mini-protein crop protection compounds that help row-crop growers control herbicide-resistant weeds and other pests, raised a $5 million seed round led by Serra Ventures, with Starshot Capital, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Flyover Capital, Rootstock Capital, Iowa Corn Opportunities Fund, AgriCap Fund, Kentucky Corn Plus, AgVentures Alliance, and Ag Startup Engine also chiming in. More here.

General Compute raised $15 million to build the world's first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. And because ASIC silicon is far more energy efficient, it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making expansion dramatically easier. Learn more at generalcompute.com. 

Okta, a cloud-based identity and access management company that secures user authentication for enterprises, has agreed to acquire Permiso Security, a six-year-old Palo Alto startup that detects identity-based attacks across cloud environments and AI agents, for nearly $200 million in an almost entirely cash deal. Permiso raised a total of approximately $29 million from investors including Altimeter Capital, Point72 Ventures, Foundation Capital, Vertex Ventures US, 11.2 Capital, and Work-Bench. TechCrunch has more here.

Nscale, a two-year-old British AI cloud provider backed by Nvidia, is acquiring Anyscale, a San Francisco startup whose software helps companies manage and scale AI workloads across servers and data centers, for $1.65 billion. Anyscale raised approximately $281 million from investors such as New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, Addition, Foundation Capital, Intel Capital, Avra, and Sancus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Nscale (see Exits above) is preparing for a possible fall IPO at a valuation bankers have floated around $25 billion, even as comparable stocks slide. The Information has more here.

An AI-generated clone of jailed former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son Flávio’s presidential campaign, prompting election authorities to examine whether the deepfake violated Brazil’s ban on AI-generated political content and could disqualify the younger Bolsonaro. Gizmodo has more here.

Scale AI, the data and AI applications company founded by Alexandr Wang, named former Google Cloud executive Francis deSouza as CEO, succeeding interim chief Jason Droege a year after Wang left to become Meta’s chief AI officer. DeSouza, who previously spent seven years as president and CEO of the DNA sequencing corporation Illumina, did not stay long at Google Cloud, which he joined as COO in January of last year. Reuters has more here.

AI tools are enabling thousands of entrepreneurs to build million-dollar companies without employees, with Stripe reporting that solo operators generating more than $1 million doubled from 2023 to 2025, while those topping $10 million nearly tripled. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Amazon engineers identified multiple “catastrophically expensive” AI cost overruns, including a failed Claude-powered project that spent $1.8 million — 860% over budget — and went undetected for five months, prompting the company to build automated spending guardrails. The Financial Times has more here.

LinkedIn added a “Seems like AI slop” reporting button, new classifiers, and private authenticity warnings as it tries to suppress low-quality machine-written posts. TechCrunch has more here.

Wiz claims a now-patched vulnerability in Microsoft’s Azure Cosmos DB could have let hackers remotely compromise Microsoft and thousands of cloud customers, though Microsoft says it has found no evidence that anyone was affected. Reuters has more here.

Airlines including Delta and Virgin Atlantic are adopting AI pricing systems that continuously adjust fares using demand, competitor, and operational data, likely raising prices on busy routes while discounting quieter flights to maximize revenue and seat occupancy. Bloomberg has more here.

A growing cohort of drivers is rejecting computerized cars, keeping older models longer, buying used vehicles, disabling alerts, and seeking newer options such as Slate’s stripped-down electric truck that preserves physical controls.

A “turducken” fossil from Australia’s Eromanga Sea reveals a rare three-tier Cretaceous food chain: a 23-foot ichthyosaur swallowed a pterosaur before apparently being attacked and eaten by a 40-foot Kronosaurus.

The 7,500-square-foot Tribeca penthouse featured as Bobby Axelrod’s home in Billions has returned to market for $59.5 million, offering four bedrooms, 18-foot ceilings, and a 4,500-square-foot wraparound terrace with 360-degree Manhattan views.

More than 1,400 film and television props, including John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever suit, The Shining ax, and the Jurassic Park mosquito fossil, are heading to auction in Los Angeles, with estimates reaching $3 million altogether.

Kooky bowling shoes.

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